Scary interview

Stood in the chilly September wind waiting to interview Stags’ boss Billy Dearden after the doom and gloom of another poor defeat is certainly one of the less glamourous sides of journalism.

Mansfield Town had just lost 1-0 to Dagenham and were now bottom of the Football League as the pack of waiting reporters prepared to pick the bones out of Stags’ latest failure.

So with chattering teeth and a fuming football manager on the other side of the microphone (or in Chad’s case, a tape recorder) I entered the interview with a certain element of apprehension.

During my time at the Chad I have interviewed a number of important sports stars such as top level swimmer Rebecca Adlington and former footballers Peter Shirtliff and 1966 world cup winner Ray Wilson, but this particular interview filled me with nerves.

Luckily for me though I know my football, which is always a good starting point, and Billy Dearden is a calm and collected manager to interview, even in the most testing of circumstances (as I have unfortunately been finding out in recent weeks).

I always find it remarkable how both managers and players keep their collective cool so well after such humiliating defeats (I know if it was me I’d be swearing and shouting my head-off and certainly wouldn’t want to be interviewed).

From a journalistic point of view I was pleased with the post-match interview, which provided a crisp and consice breakdown of the basement battle from the men that really matter.

I just hope the next time I get the pleasure of a post-match Billy Dearden interview we will be celebrating a much-needed three points in the bag.

NCE outing

As well as being one of the finest and proudest cities in England, Liverpool was also my destination for work today - a welcome change from my normal Outram Street surroundings and stunning view of Wilkinson’s I must say.

I was in Scouseland, as I like to call it, to sit the very important NCE journalist exam, an exam which basically officially confirms that we can do the job we’ ve all been doing so well for the past two years and greatly enhances our pay packet and job opportunities.

For me it was a welcome diversion from the norm and a great chance to see Liverpool once again.

I studied in Liverpool and had been meaning to go back to the city for many years, to recall my happy student memories and to exorcise the ghost of a particulary viscious pigeon attack I was subjected too outside Tesco Express in the city centre.

After a particularly irritating journey around Liverpool’s ring road and an unscheduled tour around the Albert Dock, I arrived at the examination centre ready to give it my best shot in the two papers (one law paper and one role-play interview) I was due to sit.

My pre-exam confidence was soon drained away though as I went on to show as much legal knowledge as Lionel Hutz from The Simpsons – not a good start to the day.

Thankfully my role-play interview (a rather surreal 20 mins of myself interviewing an examiner about the hypothetical kidnapping of a young boy) went much better.

This time I performed like Lois Lane and am confident I am at least one step nearer to becoming a new and improved reporter.

Unfortunately my dreams have been shattered twice before when it comes to Mr NCE though, so I hope you’ll excuse me if I don’t look forward to resullts day on 19th November with any great excitement.

Maybe I should just go back to Liverpool and buy some lucky heather of a friendly gypsy to guarentee my exam success.

It’s a news drought

Well major news stories in Ashfield seem to be drying up completely these days. In fact, I’m currently considering officially placing news in the district on the list of endangered species.

It seems the days when staff at the Ashfield Chad worked themselves like some sort of pre-Russian revolution farm slave are just a cherished but all too distant memory (although for the official record me and Melissa work our little cotton socks off.)

But on a more serious note, the lack of hard news in recent months at the Ashfield Chad is a perplexing subject for myself and the news editors.

Maybe residents are simply taking note of fire service safety messages and no longer burning their houses down, or just staying safer when they venture out into Sutton and Kirkby for a night of pub-based madness – either way, the downturn in non self-generated news is certainly being felt by myself.

And unfortunately a regular source of solid news for us when we enter quiet periods, namely council-related goings on, is currently being largely denied to us thanks to the upcoming by-election for the ward recently vacated by Roy Adkins, meaning we cannot report any news which could influence the election (don’t you just love democracy.)

But as they say, every cloud has a silver lining…and my silver lining was being able to use my new found time to take a tentative dabble into the exciting world of new media.

This involved filming an interview with Mansfield Town captain Jake Buxton for our internet website…an interview I certainly found strange.

For many years I have always interviewed people the conventional way during my job….with a pen and notepad, followed by writing my story up.

So it certainly felt a rather strange and alien concept to  conduct a notepad-less interview and left me feeling like I hadn’t actually done anything.

Although video interviewing is currently a new tool in the Chad armoury, it is certainly an area, along with audio interviewing, that I am eagerly looking forward to getting my teeth into.

And if the news stays this quiet then at least I’ll have plenty of time to get to grips with it.

Slow beginnings

Well this particular Chad week, I’m sorry to say, has begun rather slowly with stories today drying up to such a trickle that it reminds me of a fading Australian outback stream.

Today the only stories to have troubled myself and my chum Melissa Shaw is small reports on various fundraising activities and a report of a recent council presentation – hardly the stuff dreams are made of.

But there you have the animal that is weekly newspapers – it cannot always be bucket loads of hard news stories and emotional human interest articles on a daily basis, there will the odd day in three where it is slim pickings.

On days like these we at the Chad, or at least the Ashfield Chad anyway, have to resist the lure of facebook and other internet-related shannigans and dig deep in our sacred contacts book.

And dig deep we will to find the stories necessary to suitably fill this week’s edition and keep Chad sub-editor Mark “sheephead” Hall a busy bee.

Although things are indeed quiet at the moment, we can at least sit back safe in the knowledge that today is only Wednesday (traditionally a quiet day) and day one of our fledgling week.

In the coming days we have a number of community meetings to attend, including Annesley and Felley Parish Council, West Hill Community Group and Sutton Partnership Group.

We don’t know what the week ahead has in store yet, but one thing is for sure…the momentum of stories will soon begin to rumble uncontrollably on.

Success or not? You decide

Tuesday marks the end of another interesting week in the proud history of the Ashfield Chad.

Whether the week will be declared a success or not though will be decided by the Ashfield public over the next seven days, but we hope you will enjoy the content and efforts of the Ashfield reporting team.

While not being as full of hard news and meaty stories as we would like (it seems Mansfield has enough death, doom and gloom for us all this week), the Ashfield edition still has more than enough to keep you suitably entertained.

This week we pay a fitting tribute to popular Sutton fundraiser Ivan Pitchford, a man who tirelessly dedicated his life to raising thousands of pounds for charity and helping others, who sadly died this week.

Popular Ivan, who worked for many different charities in recent years, lived life to the full and will be greatly missed by many people across Ashfield.

But as we all know, life goes on and Stanton Hill residents are this week turning their attention to the future and how they can combat troublesome anti-social behaviour in the area.

And for those of you who enjoy reading about the sadder aspects of life (yes, there are lots out there), we have a report on a nasty hit and run incident in Sutton and a savage assualt in Kirkby.

Sports fans are in for a treat as well (ok, I did write most of it myself but its still good) with some comprehensive coverage of Mansfield Town and their current woes.

While those who enjoy reading about grass roots issues can enjoy a nice romantic diamond wedding report and another sampling of Community Corner.

So as you guys can see, we don’t have a mass amount of “corkers”, but there is plenty out there and something for everything to enjoy over their cup of tea.

But if you will be good enough to excuse me….the world of journalism never stops ticking and I already hear next week’s edition calling my name.

Stanley shambles

Well yesterday I had the pleasure of reporting on Mansfield Town’s crucial League Two clash against Accrington Stanley in the absence of Chad’s regular Stags guru John Lomas.

And despite the poor quality press facilities at Stanley’s ramshackled ground (we were so tightly packed in I was virtually sat on the lap of Mansfield 103.2’s Jason Harrison and someone in the row in front of me also has an interesting bruise from a falling laptop as a souvenir) it was an enjoyable experience as ever.

But in truth it was the easiest game I have ever had to report on, with the match being devoid of any real action and moments of excitement as both teams demonstrated just why they will have a season-long fight to avoid the agonising drop out of the league.

It is sadly clear for all the see that Mansfield Town now face an all mighty fight to maintain their league status as they struggle to find the back of the net and to keep clean sheets at the other end.

At present Stags are leaking goals worryingly thanks to costly individual errors, the midfield is lacking balance, shape and creativity - failing to protect the defence behind them and to supply the men in front of them – while the strikers (Mickey Boulding in particular) continues to squander golden chances to earn Stags some crucial points.

No-one can doubt the desire of everyone connected with Mansfield Town Football Club to turn things around, but sadly effort alone is not enough in football without the necessary quality in the squad.

Even at this very early stage of the season Stags are now trailing rivals such as Accrington by five points. Do they have enough quality to stay up? …only time will tell.

What is certain is Stags’ experienced players now need to stand up and be counted and help their younger team-mates through the tricky times, the squad must dig deep together for themselves, the club and more importantly the fans.

Stags must get nothing less than maximum points against Dagenham at Field Mill on Saturday, three points makes the world of difference in football…but another defeat will leave the Stags season in tatters.

Lets hope the cry of “Yellows, Yellows, Yellows” will be ringing out around Field Mill at 4.50pm on Saturday.

Fantastic Fridays

Well as I’m sure you’ve all noticed….IT’S FRIDAY, and goodness hasn’t that come around quick again.

At last the week of early morning kick-offs, propping the chin up as you desperately try not to fall asleep at your desk and long irritating days sadly devoid of fun-filled leisure time has finally ended.

The hours slowly tick down and turn into minutes as the two-days of weekend madness cheekily prepares to kick the working week decisevely into touch ( It’s just a shame our good friends Monday to Friday will gather their collective strength once again to firmly banish the weekend for another five days)

In Chad land Friday, as well as being the day we all dreamed of, also  marks a good indication as to how the week’s newspaper is shaping up.

It shows us whether we will have an action-packed rag or whether we’re worryingly devoid of stories and need to either pray to the weekend god to bring us some news stories or whip out our trusty contacts books.

And im sure you ll all be pleased to hear that the Ashfield Chad appears to be bubbling up quite nicely, with a good range of reports ready to feed you news-hungry punters.

As is the way with these things, this week we appear to be suffering from the age-old problem of finding a belter for the front page. Hopefully the weekend can come to our rescue ( so if you wouldn’t mind burning a house down or something we’d be most grateful)

But in true WWE fashion I must of course qualify that with a “please dont try that at home” statement, I’m sure fate can help us without any outside assistance. 

For my weekend’s sin I will once again be watching a dangerous amount of football and attempting to strike it rich at the bookies.

Enjoy your weekend, and whatever you do make the most of it…that sly dog Monday will be sneaking upon us again before you know it.

Chad day

As well as being a day where we can sense the much-desired weekend hovering, teasing us if you will, just over the horizon, Wednesday is also known as Chad day.

And today’s Chad day over here in sunny Ashfield,  and I hope you will all agree, is a belting day…with this week’s edition overflowing with news, views and events.

One of the biggest problems I have found during my spell in the Ashfield Chad hot seat is finding a cracking front page each week to draw the readers in.

We never have a shortage of stories for the rest of the paper, but that extra special belter that will really get the newspapers flying off the shelves like hot-cakes is just a tad more problematic.

But this week there were no such problems. What makes a story is turmoil, agony and despair or joy, celebrations and delight…in short human emotion.

And this Wednesday we had that in an abundance with the tragic tale of Bill Starr’s fight to care for his terminally-ill Kirkby wife and the rights and wrongs of euthanasia. Whatever your views, the issue is certain to stir up a lot of emotive debate.

Thankfully it was not all doom and gloom and on a brighter note staff at Sutton’s Quarrydale School officially launched their bid for the school to attain specialist status in maths and science.

From meeting headteacher Craig Weaver and deputy headteacher Martin Brooks it was easy to see just how much work the school has put into the bid, just how much the school ( both staff and pupils) want to be successful and to make Quarrydale the focal point of the community.

Specialist status would be fantastic news for Quarrydale, it would open up a world of opportunities for pupils to use state-of-the-art equipment, to access work placement opportunities and do develop their knowledge and skills better than ever before.

 The bid is fanastic news  for the whole community and I for one am giving the bid my own personal “thumbs up”.

This week also saw the annual State of Ashfield debate, bringing both good and bad news for the area.

The interesting debate revealed that Ashfield has a long way to go to improve as a district (tell us something we didn’t already know)

But joking aside, the report also shows that the district is heading in the right direction and has done a lot to improve.

As a district Ashfield does struggle as we all know and has many problems, the legacy of the coalmining collapse will take a long time to disappear.

Ashfield does have a lot to offer people if the residents, the infrastructure and the community in general are given the chance and means to thrive and take the area forward.

It will take a lot of hard work and effort and a lot of toil and sweat, but I am sure both the people of the district and Ashfield District Council have the necessary desire to drag the area out of the doldrums in the coming years.

In time Ashfield will become a much better place to work, rest and play in ( stop laughing over there!!!)

Crikey, what a lot of news….lets just hope next week is as productive.

Monday morning blues

Apart from not having any fur I’m very much like Garfield….I hate Mondays.

After a seriously sleep-deprived weekend I would love to have used Monday morning to catch up on a much-needed 80 winks or so rather than a long day at work.

But alas, unless I win the lottery or win it big with Bet365 ( as I’m always trying to do for those who don’t know me) work and undesireable Monday mornings will be on the agenda for quite some time.

In Chad land Mondays can be rather hectic as we attempt to catch up with all the weekend’s madness ( house fires, Saturday night town centre brawls and such like ) and summon up the energy to get our moods out of weekend mood and into work mode.

Thankfully my start to the week went much quicker than I could have hoped for, with a three hour Standards Committee meeting at Ashfield District Council accounting for a large chunk of the day.

Although there were huge chunks of time spent sat waiting for something to happen, it at least gave me a good chance to catch up on Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island on my MP3 player.

And after working on a range of other stories to keep the paper as full as possible ( we have an absolute belter of a rag this week) time slowly ticked away towards 5pm.

One day down…four more to go until we can all once again celebrate the weekend.

Field Mill faithful

BEING a local news journalist is not all about covering community festivals, school activities and basic court reporting, its much more fun than that.

And at Chad we reporters are given excellent opportunities to cut loose and have the fun we all desire by reporting on events that tickle our own personal fancies – whether that’s concerts, the theatre, travel writing or restaurant reviews.

For me my own elixir of life has always been sports, in fact the desire to cover sports events and in particular football was the whole reason I decided to enter the world of newspapers (I believe my philosophy was “If I’m too rubbish to play football then I might as well write about it instead)

And this weekend I was once again given the fantastic opportunity to make the most of being a Chad reporter, by wangling a free pass to watch the big Mansfield Town v Chesterfield derby.

Luckily for me I’ve had many opportunties to report on Mansfield Town games during my Chad career, whether actually reporting on the game ( some of the highest pressure reporting I’ve ever experienced) or simply conducting some post-match interviews with Stags stars and boss Billy Dearden to assist our Sports Editor John Lomas.

For me its the best type of reporting and a real chance to relax and have some fun ( I also know much more about football than say politics or music which helps somewhat)

Covering football gives me much more freedom, its a different style of reporting where you can be more considered in your reports, more opinionated on the events unfolding before your eyes and, dare I say, more liberal with the questions you ask.

In fact, it  often feels much more like I’m having a chat with my interviewee when I’m at Field Mill, than some strict and formal interview which I would have with a local politician for example.

Reporting on Stags has also given me a fantastic behind the scenes view into the club and how it is run., as well as a great chance to see just what the playing staff and management team are really like off the pitch ( and for the record, they are a good bunch of lads working hard to help Mansfield Town hopefully succeed)

And although it’s only League Two football and the standard may not be the greatest, there is still something wonderful about watching live football.

Stags may not be my club ( Huddersfield Town are my boys for those of you who don’t know) but I still get caught up in the passion and enjoy being at Field Mill.

And for the next two week’s I will have the pleasure of covering the next two Stags games ( against Accrington Stanley and Dagenham and Redbridge) for Chad in the absence of John Lomas, and it’s a role I cant wait to get my teeth into.